


My Way Across the Flames

by vogue91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Introspection, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 12:45:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12984354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: "The one advantage of playing with fire, is that one never gets even singed. It is the people who don't know how to play with it who get burned up.” (Oscar Wilde)And Bellatrix never knew she didn't know how to play with fire.





	My Way Across the Flames

**Author's Note:**

> English it's not my native language.

I always thought I was better than the others.  
Maybe I wasn’t touched by that foolish Muggle hating, by the bitterness in every word, but the presumption of the Blacks had inexorably tainted me.  
I thought I was different than all I feared may have ended up to be good, in the end.  
I was wrong. I followed a road I paved, and yet I’m here, resentful, with the bitter taste of a life well spent and consumed all too soon.

_“They saw you, you know?” her sister’s voice was sharp, as usual, but made more so by a hate so pure, as Andromeda had rarely caught in her voice._   
_“They saw me where?” she asked, feigning innocence. She feared she understood what Bellatrix was referring to, and she wanted to buy some time to think about what to do._   
_“Don’t ask ‘where’. Ask instead ‘with whom’.” she retorted, in a hiss. She clenched her teeth, and her breath became faster. “You were with that disgusting Mudblood Tonks!” she accused, like for her it was the most horrifying thing she could think about._   
_Andromeda sighed, massaging her temples. She wasn’t going to win this._   
_“And who, may I ask, saw me?” she refused to answer directly to her sister’s words, knowing she wouldn’t have accepted any justification for something she found so demeaning on her family’s name and on Andromeda’s own dignity._   
_“Rodolphus.” she spat her fiancée’s name with hate, almost surprised he had proved himself useful for once._   
_Andromeda bit her lip. She wasn’t going to escape the accusations, she knew that._   
_That she found them completely unnecessary, wasn’t important for her older sister, grown up with bread and hate towards anything that didn’t reflect her ideals._   
_“So what?” the dare in her voice barely hid the anxiety, like this was her personal Judgment Day._   
_“So what?” Bella was whispering now, and her eyes seemed to burst into flames._   
_That fire that every Black had amused himself with sooner or later._   
_That fire which breath had pushed Sirius on a better destiny than the one his birth had presented h.im, that fire that was consuming Regulus, that fire which was dying fast in Cissy._   
_That fire that surrounded Bella’s existence, that fire that Andromeda was risking getting burnt with, even before she could begin to understand its meaning._   
_“You’re a shame to this family, Andromeda.” her sister declared with a devilish smile, like she was pleased by the mere fact. The rivalry between the two of them had come to his apex: so similar in the looks and nature, with the same gifts and the same lacks, with two completely opposite way of action and thought._   
_Andromeda breathed deeply, barely resisting the temptation to hurt her. She wasn’t going to allow anyone to forbid her that happiness she was just beginning to know, the happiness which she knew was asking for unimaginable sacrifices._   
_“I love him, Bella.” she said, slowly, like the declaration that was going to sign her death sentence._

Sometimes, when I though back at those moments, I almost thought I could feel the cheek burning, marked by her fingers.  
That slap meant to mark her territory, like Cissy and I belonged to her, and had the duty of becoming like her, getting close without really reaching our example.  
To me, that hand brought heavily on my face took away with it my last name. That gesture convinced me I couldn’t have possibly be like them, that my soul wasn’t going to bear the weight of a family whose ideas and traditions fought so hard with what I most desired.  
My silent wedding, my daughter’s birth and all that came after that, were indirectly Bella’s achievements, even though she’s never going to know.  
Hadn’t she been so good in spreading her hate, maybe today I’d be the unhappy and unsatisfied wife of a Mr. Pureblood, with the same use as a valuable ornament.

~

I took a chance, Bella, I threw myself naked in the fire, like you did.  
And I found out that the one advantage of playing with fire is that one never gets even singed. It is the people who don’t know how to play with it who get burned up. I don’t know whether I played or not by the rules, I only know there’s nothing else burning inside me, just the mark of your hand on my face. But that fire doesn’t belong to me, you knew that.  
Your presumption is still burning, and your existence has become the pyre of your flesh, of your desires, of your ephemeral expectations.  
We Black burn, Bellatrix. Some of us burn of life, some of unattended hopes and some of a death which is consuming them without them knowing.  
And you, one and only like you always liked to be, you just burn everything that dares getting close, like a machine programmed for a complete annihilation.  
Until you’ll meet a mirror, sister, and you’ll see that fire can’t defeat everything.  
Until on that mirror you’ll see a reflection of your flames, which will surround you in a last embrace of death.  
And I won’t cry that passing, I already know. Only, I’ll be saddened thinking that you never saw the warmth of my fire, unlike yours, a warmth you never wanted to touch.  
Your heat will extinguish quickly, leaving room to the ice that you, in the end, deserve.  
You, who never knew how to play with fire.


End file.
